As well known to those skilled in the art, pallets are portable platforms used for handling, storing, or moving materials and packages (raw materials, semiprocessed goods, or end-products) in warehouses, factories, or vehicles. When it is necessary to move materials and packages with such pallets using a fork-lift truck, the pallets do not remain on the support surface but are lifted and moved by the fork-lift truck along with the materials and packages.
Typical pallets, used for handling, storing, or moving materials and packages, are manufactured by arranging a plurality of vertical and horizontal wood members, individually having a predetermined size, so as to allow the members to meet at right angles. Thereafter, the vertical and horizontal members are integrated into a single body using a plurality of nails, screws or rivets at the crosses of the members. For example, in order to form a pallet, a plurality of rectangular wood bars, having the same size and configuration, are arranged in a parallel and regularly spaced arrangement. Thereafter, a plurality of wood plates are regularly arranged on the wood bars so as to meet the wood bars at right angles prior to fastening the wood plates to the wood bars using a plurality of nails at the crosses.
However, such wood pallets are problematic in that it is very difficult to manufacture them since the vertical and horizontal members have to be arranged across each other at right angles and are integrated into a single body by a plurality of nails driven at the crosses one by one. When materials and packages are removed from such wood pallets, the pallets are not reused but are regrettably scrapped, thus causing waste of resources and increasing the circulation expenses of goods and being inconvenient to users.
When such wood pallets are used for storing materials and packages in warehouses with wet air or storing bricks or stones in the open air, the pallets are easily wetted. Such wet wood pallets may be deformed or rotted, thus failing to stably support materials, packages, bricks and stones. Such rotting wood pallets also give out a bad smell irritating those around them.
Another problem experienced in the typical wood pallets is that they can not be effectively used for handling, storing, or moving materials and packages regardless of sizes or configurations of the materials and packages. That is, the typical wood pallets have fixed sizes, so it is necessary to separately produce a plurality of pallets having various sizes so as to meet different sizes of materials and packages, and this causes a reduction in productivity of the pallets.